Thursday, August 29, 2002
Early Thursday afternoon. The day before Dragon*Con. Utter chaos. It's always chaotic, but this year it seems especially chaotic. I honestly don't understand how some authors do so many cons every year. Three per annum is about my limit.
It helps not that I'm such a frelling clothes horse. Jennifer and Thryn are running about packing; I'm just trying to stay calm.
Anyway, obviously there's not much time for an entry today, so I offer the following from my bbs. It's simply my replies to three questions about Low Red Moon from yesterday, which a regular on the bbs thought would be nice for the journal:
"Jocelyn wrote:
'Caitlin, I'm kind of curious if you have any thoughts as to why you were able to finish LRM quicker and with more ease than your previous novels'
That makes two of us.
'Has writing gotten easier for you as time goes on?'
No. I have a few hypotheses though. One, keeping the online journal forced me to either a) keep moving ahead at a steady pace or b) look like a damned fool. I chose the former. Two, Low Red Moon is written in a slightly different voice than either Silk or Threshold. For one, it's more reliant on dialogue. Also, the description has been pared down a bit. Both of these factors undoubtedly sped things along. Three, I had a far clearer idea of the overall story before I began writing than I usually have at the start of a novel. Even though the story twice veered radically from the direction I thought it would take (chapters 10 and 14), knowing the overall plot helped. Four, winning two IHGs in April was a huge ego boost and Happy Ego writes faster than Unhappy Ego. Five, also an ego boost, all the interest in Threshold from Hollywood. Six, my schedule is getting so tight I just didn't have time to frell around with this novel. Soooooooo, if you stick all those together, I think you have a functional answer for why Low Red Moon was written so much faster.
'Do you maybe trust yourself more and are more comfortable with what you write?'
Nope."
Sadly, today is not rainy . . .
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